Su Wu sat down against the wall and rested for a while.
Waves of heavy exhaustion kept washing over him. Even the firelight in the temple only eased it slightly.
And the skin along his side, where the Fiend Hand was attached, seemed to have developed layer upon layer of wrinkles.
Frowning, Su Wu struggled to unzip his jacket. Beneath his right armpit, he saw that the skin connected to the Fiend Hand hung loose and slack, like an old man's skin.
Even unnatural black spots had begun to appear on it.
What was happening?
-Did the Fiend Hand weaken my bodily functions and drain my vitality?!
A possibility immediately occurred to Su Wu. Looking at the motionless, pitch-black arm, he felt that every inch of it was sinister and unnatural. Using the Gang Cave actually had such serious consequences!
I mustn't rashly use the Gang Cave in reality!
In the next simulation, I must try escaping with only the Imperial Bell!
Time passed slowly. Outside the temple, the crimson glow flared and faded, then faded and flared, repeating several times. Each flare lasted a different length of time, and the stretches of silent darkness before it appeared were equally unpredictable.
The shortest lasted only a few breaths, while the longest was nearly ten minutes.
Taking advantage of this time, Su Wu propped himself up and first read through the notebook.
"April 10.
I had a feeling something bad might happen, so I quit showing up at work and used the time to make some preparations."
"April 11.
I slept in today, until two in the afternoon.
No need to rush the preparations. I'll deal with them tomorrow."
"April 12.
Fished all night, slept during the day."
"April 13.
Slept in until noon. After eating, I bought a map of Mingzhou and a map of Huayang Commandery.
The landlord argued with the couple upstairs. He said who knew what they were doing in their apartment to make mold grow all over the walls. Isn't that a problem with his building?
I noticed mold starting to grow in my apartment too."
Su Wu closed the notebook.
Even though he already possessed the simulator now, his future self had never mentioned it in his notes.
The simulator was a variable in the present; the future was the outcome of the present.
To some extent, the outcome could reflect the effects of that variable. For instance, his future self had begun deliberately buying maps, noticed the changes in his room ahead of time, and made preparations because of a bad feeling.
But once the outcome was fixed, the variable could no longer be put to use.
Aside from all the sleeping in, the notebook still contained plenty of useful information.
First, mold had already begun growing upstairs on the thirteenth. The landlord had even argued with the couple over it, so it must have covered a considerable area.
Then, on the fourteenth, three murders had occurred nearby.
His future self had specifically asked around about the crime scenes. Although information had been suppressed to prevent public panic, he had still obtained a lead: all the murders had taken place in Building 3.
The tenants of Building 3 had moved out one after another afterward.
On the fifteenth, the couple upstairs had died under bizarre circumstances, their bodies left in a horrific state.
At that point, his future self had also received a message in the Tenant Group Chat and begun sealing the windows and cutting off every source of light.
Tucking the notebook back into his pocket, Su Wu recalled the contents of the notebook he had seen when he first entered the simulation game and compared them in his mind.
The first time he entered the game, the recorded murders had occurred on the sixteenth, and the young couple upstairs had not suddenly died their gruesome deaths until the eighteenth.
Clearly, the Shadow Fiend had appeared earlier this time.
Perhaps this "butterfly" had flapped his wings and caused its early appearance.
Or perhaps the Shadow Fiend had no fixed arrival time at all and could appear at any point within a certain period.
He would need to check the notebook promptly in later simulations to determine whether the Shadow Fiend's arrival was unpredictable, or whether something he had done had caused it to appear early.
Su Wu firmly committed this to memory, then opened the social app on his phone.
First, he entered the Tenant Group Chat and searched through the messages.
The Tenant Group Chat was silent now, with no one chatting.
He swiped down, passing a few group notifications, and saw a message from someone whose profile picture was completely black and whose name was a single blank space: "Attention, residents of all buildings in Peaceful Garden: over the next few days, make absolutely sure your doors and windows are shut, and cover every source of light inside your homes.
Stay quietly inside and wait for assistance. We are already taking action.
An unidentified substance transmitted through light has now spread throughout Peaceful Garden. Anyone who recklessly opens a window to let in light or uses any light source will be killed outright by this substance!
Please make absolutely sure to cut off every source of light. Your lives are priceless!"
The social app had verified the message and highlighted it with a prominent blue border. Several pixelated photographs of corpses were attached directly below.
Even through the pixelation, the brutality of the scenes and the horrifying condition of the bodies were apparent.
It was precisely because his future self had seen this message in the group that he had sealed the windows and shut down all his devices, keeping nothing that could produce light.
Su Wu opened the profile of the person with the pitch-black avatar.
Their bio contained only a string of digits: "20280733."
Was this person a member of the staff combating supernatural forces in Mingzhou?
The Shadow Fiend used shadows to kill people wherever it went, but explaining it to ordinary people as an "unidentified substance transmitted through light" could reduce their panic.
At the same time, it would make them as wary of "light" as possible. That worked too.
Finding no clues in the staff member's bio, Su Wu left the Tenant Group Chat and discovered that people were still talking in several other groups.
The one that caught his attention most was undoubtedly his former company's work group.
I quit without notice and left the work group. When did I get added back?
Puzzled, he opened the work group chat.
He immediately saw his former supervisor, "Huang Zhicheng," whose avatar showed a professional in a suit, sending message after message: "Anyone here?"
"Are you all dead?"
"Why hasn't anyone come to work today?"
"@Wang Zhiyou, why haven't you come to work?"
"@Little Tiger, why haven't you come to work?"
"@Wang Zhiyou, why haven't you come to work?"
"Huang Zhicheng" kept tagging the group members, but not a single person replied.
Didn't this bastard know what the city had become? The coworkers he was tagging might already be headless corpses.
Watching "Huang Zhicheng" mechanically tag every member, Su Wu frowned. Just as he was about to leave the chat again, his former supervisor suddenly tagged him: "@Biscuit-Eating Young Master, why haven't you come to work?"
Fuck you. Drop dead, you bastard. Are you out of your mind?
Su Wu typed out the triple volley of abuse, hesitated, and did not press send.
He suddenly felt that something very eerie was happening in this work group.
This time, however, "Huang Zhicheng" seemed determined to pick a fight with Su Wu. When he failed to respond, Huang did not simply move on as he had with the other members. Instead, he kept tagging Su Wu.
"@Biscuit-Eating Young Master, I'm asking you a question."
"@Biscuit-Eating Young Master, why aren't you coming to work?"
"@Biscuit-Eating Young Master, why aren't you saying anything?"
"Speak!"
"Speak!"
"You think I can't find you just because you won't speak-"
The final message turned into a line of twisted, blood-red lettering that abruptly smeared across Su Wu's entire phone screen!
Before you continue